NELIé’S LAST NOTE quivered indigo in the hot air under Madame’s high-ceilinged studio. The note rose, melting into mauve before dissipating in a mellifluous fade amidst Madame’s applause. Nelié blinked, the colors of the music gone now, her fingertips throbbing. Madame hadn’t stopped her once, had let her make her way through the whole first movement of Paganini’s first concerto for violin, the piece she’d been working on for months.
The clapping continued from the courtyard. Not again. That person stood by the topiary tree at every violin practice. At least a month now. Annoying.
She flexed her fingers, rubbed them against her thumb one by one, feeling blood rush into the grooves made in her finger pads from pressing on the string.
“Très bien, ma fille.” Madame de Langlet, white hair pulled back tight in a bun, stepped toward Nelié’s music stand and tapped her trimmed fingernails on the score. “Give it just a touch more on the crescendo, et parfait.” High praise from Madame, a former directrice of the Conservatoire, who tutored her gratis. “We worked late tonight, ma fille, but it’s paid off.”
Nelié pushed the stray wisps of her blonde hair behind her ears and packed her violin into the case’s velvet interior. Like always, she felt the aura of greatness that imbued Madame’s studio, which was once Chopin’s apartment—perhaps it was the master’s hallowed presence.
“Keep working on it, but you’re ready,” said Madame. “I’ll recommend you for the Conservatoire audition.”
Nelié tried to contain her excitement. She kissed Madame, whose rose-flower eau de toilette hovered like a pink cloud, twice on both cheeks. “Merci beaucoup, Madame.”
Nelié clutched the violin case, swung her messenger bag over her shoulder and ran down the studio’s marble staircase into the night. All the practice on the Paganini piece had paid off. Happiness bubbled inside her. Madame said she was ready—finally—for the audition. Papa would be so proud. He couldn’t afford the Conservatoire, but Madame told her to worry about that later.
A wave of damp heat hit her as she crossed the dark, shadowed Square d’Orléans. She paused at the fountain, letting the spray hit her face. Madame had told her Chopin’s lover, the writer George Sand, a strange baronne who wrote books under a man’s name, often crossed this very courtyard to listen to him play. Paganini himself had been here to visit the composer Berlioz, who’d lived nearby. Sometimes after practice Madame would pour herself a glass of wine and Nelié an Orangina and tell her stories like this.
But now she had to rush home. She felt like she flew through the quiet streets, the bright waves of colorful music in her head lifting her like wings. Everyone was at home glued to the télé or crowding the bars to watch the World Cup quarterfinals. Not her papa. Tonight, as every night, he worked at l’Opéra as a stagehand. He would be home after the ballet performance and stage-set adjustment.
Dinner … that’s right, she’d almost forgotten. So much had filled her with color tonight. After the lesson running so late and the excitement, she mustn’t forget to stop at the corner Arab shop. Scramble up dinner for them, comme toujours. And spring her good news.
A few blocks away, the sky opened. Dark blue then a wash of pewter. Stupid—she’d forgotten her umbrella. Just like that, a torrential downpour flooded the hot pavement. Nelié took refuge in a doorway. She couldn’t let her violin case get wet. But the Opéra’s employee lodging, where they’d lived as long as she could remember, was several blocks away.
Footsteps splattered behind her. A figure darted into a doorway.
Suddenly uneasy, she pulled the messenger bag over her violin case and made a run for it.
The footsteps started again, splashing behind her in the puddles on the dark, deserted street. The silver pings of raindrops on the dark cobbles and the splashing pewter footsteps blended into a charcoal haze. She grew increasingly aware of a metallic-hued vapor, fought panic as she realized the footsteps stopped when she did to seek shelters in doorways.
Her heart jumped. That’s when she knew she was being followed. The figure from the courtyard. He was following her.
Monday, 11 P.M.
BACK AT THE Leduc Detective office, Aimée tacked up the Brigade des Mineurs reports René had downloaded from her camera, blown up and printed. Disappointed, she noted the preliminary and cursory details of the crime scene. Sketchy at best.
The first twenty-four hours meant everything in an investigation. Just this afternoon Zazie had stood in this office, only hours before her friend had been raped and murdered. Aimée glanced at the time. Nine hours and counting.
She switched on the green glass desk lamp, which sent an oval of light over Zazie’s scribbled notes. Seething with frustration, she took a gulp of Badoit, hoping the carbonation would quell her rising nausea. “Why don’t they have more information on the other rape victims?”
“Kind of obvious the flics didn’t connect the cases,” René said from his ergonomic chair. “They didn’t see the pattern. Your tax francs at work.”
He’d enlarged and printed a map of the ninth arrondissement, highlighted the lycées and collèges in blue.
“Nice work, René.”
She X’d the Olivets’ cheese shop on rue de Rochechouart, the Vasseurs’ home on rue Ballu. Studied Madame Pelletier’s reports again. “Score one for the Brigade, who pinged Zazie’s cell phone. We’ve got a location.”
René rolled up his sleeves, determination in his green eyes. “I think the Wallace fountain photo was taken overlooking Place Gustave Toudouze.” He pointed to her map. “Here.”